


Never

by Moonfishgirl



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:07:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonfishgirl/pseuds/Moonfishgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sherlock never talks about me, anyway.”</p>
<p>Harry half-turned at that. “…never?”</p>
<p>“No, never. He talks about himself, his cases, St. Bart’s, himself, the morgue, Molly, Greg, himself, he even grouses about the Yard! But not once has he ever mentioned me. ‘My Blogger’ sometimes if he’s feeling generous, I suppose, but never ‘John’. Not once.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” she said. “Oh, John. Sherlock. He couldn’t be more obvious.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never

I.

Annoyed, disgruntled, and more than ready to change the subject, John dropped into a kitchen chair with one final grumble: “Sherlock never talks about me, anyway.”

Harry half-turned at that. “…never?”

“No, never. He talks about himself, his cases, St. Bart’s, himself, the morgue, Molly, Greg, himself, he even grouses about the Yard! But not once has he ever mentioned me. ‘My Blogger’ sometimes if he’s feeling generous, I suppose, but never ‘John’. Not once.”

He glanced up, but Harry still hadn’t turned all the way around and he found himself looking at her profile, her brows creased as though deep in thought.

“What?”

“John,” Harry said slowly, “doesn’t that tell you anything?”

“Yeah, he’s a conceited git.” John stabbed miserably at the food in front of him, with no intention of eating any of it. “Why? What are you getting at?”

“Let me guess,” Harry went on. “When you’re in public, he sits near you but never addresses you, never makes eye contact with you. Never engages you in conversation, never laughs at your jokes. Seems especially disinterested in mention of you, brushes off your name, refuses to listen to any gossip, and ignores you more than anyone else?”

With an incredulous snort, John dropped his fork into his plate. “You’ve taken up deduction now, too? You’ve been following me around? What the fuck??”

Harry turned to face him fully now, and John was surprised by the soft expression on her usually hard features. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, John. Sherlock. He couldn’t be more obvious.”

“What, he ignores me? Because the most important person in the world to him is him.”

“No, John.” Harry shook her head in a way that was eerily similar to Sherlock, save that strange soft expression. “He’s trying so hard to treat like you don’t matter because you matter too much. He’s trying way too hard.” Now her eyes refocused, met his with a direct gaze. “He doesn’t know what to do.”

“Are you saying Sherlock’s trying to be subtle?” John pushed back from the table, leaned back in his chair, but couldn’t quite ignore the frission of apprehension and, God help him, excitement that raced down his spine as he said the words. “You don’t know him, sis.”

“No, I don’t,” Harry admitted, “but I know a crush when I hear about one. He doesn’t know how to react to you, so – he doesn’t. Juvenile at best, but that’s what I’m seeing.”

“Juvenile, now that’s Sherlock!” But now the wheels were turning in John’s head. Now that she’d planted the damned thought, he couldn’t let go of it. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Harry shrugged, but gave him a small, gentle smile that John couldn’t help but return. It had been so long since he’d really connected with his sister. “Maybe I am, maybe this stupid romantic’s heart of mine isn’t quite as dead as I thought it was. But John – what happens if I’m not?”

“Nothing happens either way.”

“Nothing happens if it’s true, then, either?”

John hesitated just a split second too long before opening his mouth to respond, and Harry laughed at him like she used to when they were grade school children, playing truth or dare. It wasn’t cruel or harsh, but more playful and affectionate. “Go on, John, go see what happens. What could it hurt?”

It could hurt a great deal, John wanted to say, but instead he shrugged indifferently. “Oh, stuff it, Harry,” he responded, getting up. “I’d better get going anyway.”

“Get home to Sherlock?”

“Home to – now listen, you, that’s enough of that! Home to my half of the flat!”

“Could be your half of the bed….”

There was no stopping the blush that raced across his cheeks, nor Harry’s subsequent laughter, so the ex-soldier military surgeon did the best thing brothers do when confronted with their sister’s teasing: he ran.

II.

Sherlock was laid out on the couch with his violin when John stomped into the flat. He didn’t look up as John kicked off his shoes, so different from his usual fastidiousness, and tossed his coat over the back of a kitchen chair rather than hang it up. He didn’t look up as John put the kettle on, so John ignored him, as well.

The damnedest part of it all was, Harry was right.

The more John thought, in the cab on the way back home, the more all of Sherlock’s little evasions seemed just that. Shy, rather than rude. Insecure, rather than mean. Deliberately indifferent, rather than obtuse or genuinely disinterested. But what reason would Sherlock have to hide any interest in John? Unless he was especially interested in John?

This was ridiculous, John decided for the hundredth time. We’re men, we’re British men but we’re going to address this like grownups. He poured water over his teabag and assured himself that the flush over his face was the steam rising from the cup and had nothing to do with wondering, what happens if it’s true?

“He’ll throw me out,” John muttered to himself, on a half-laugh.

“Who?”

He nearly dropped the kettle when Sherlock spoke from the doorway. Though he was still staring at the mug, John was sure he’d already deduced every single sentence of John’s inner monologue. “Is something the matter?”

“How come you never mention me?”

“I beg your pardon?” Now Sherlock stepped closer, head cocked curiously, gaze sharp.

“In your statements. In your press interviews. How come you never say my name?”  
Sherlock blinked once, then dropped back, half shrugged, resting his hip against the counter, eyes averted. Interesting. “You give your own statements. I fail to see why I should have to do that for you as well –”

 

“Say my name.”

Sherlock’s head jerked up but he did not meet John’s gaze. Even more interesting. “John.” And then he whirled and left the kitchen. John did not move until he heard the bedroom door slam. To him, Sherlock was just deterred from having John make him a cup of tea, and would be in a snit all evening. But looking through Harry’s lens, Sherlock was way out of his comfort zone. Why else wouldn’t he have bothered asking John what this was all about? Why else would he have left so abruptly?

Abandoning his mug on the counter, John went to Sherlock’s bedroom door. “What are you on about, anyway? Do you want a cup of tea or not? Then get out here.”

He returned to the kitchen and was pleased to hear Sherlock’s door open, but the man did not enter the kitchen again. John watched his shadow against the floor as he stopped just short of the doorway. “Yes, just leave it out here.”

Oh, John had had enough of that. “Come in here and get it yourself.”

Sherlock hesitated. John stepped away from the stove, away from his flatmate’s line of sight, and towards the door, his back against the wall closest to the door where the great consulting detective could not see him. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Sherlock. I said –”

“I know what you said –” Sherlock mock huffed and took one exaggerated step into the kitchen –

And John cornered him, backed him into the space between the table and the wall, their bodies mere centimeters apart. “I said,” John breathed, “come in here and get it yourself.”

As a soldier John had never believed much in subtlety. Once decided, it was as good a thing as done. But if the blush staining Sherlock’s cheeks was any indication, something wasn’t as off as they had been pretending.

“I –” the taller man swallowed, looking everywhere but at John. “I – where’s my mug?”

“I don’t know.” John shrugged, false casual, and shifted closer, bracing his hands on either side of Sherlock’s body and effectively caging him in. Sherlock tried to slide farther back and met the wall. His expression took on a slightly panicked cast.

“Tea? Is that all you came in here to get?”

“John –”

“Mmm, yes, say my name again.”

This time, the blush wasn’t a hint; it was dark and pervasive. Sherlock tried to turn away but John leaned in, leaned his body against the detective, pressed his hips against Sherlock’s and felt the air leave the man’s lungs in a rush.

“Fuck, Sherlock.” John couldn’t help but breathe in his flatmate’s scent, his nose pressed against the collar of the man’s button-down shirt.

“J-John, I –” The great detective’s mouth had dropped open, his eyes were closed, his chest was heaving, and his fingers were clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You’re – what are you –”

Slowly, John reached out and slid his palms up Sherlock’s sides, listening to the sharp irregular breaths that followed his actions, and then up into the mass of dark curls, twisting his fingers gently into their softness. The detective’s choked off “oh!” was quite possibly the most erotic thing that he had ever heard, and he growled lowly, unable to stop the grind of his hips, the press of his throbbing erection against Sherlock’s hip.

Sherlock’s eyes flew open and his mouth worked for a moment before sound came out. “John, you – you’re hard.”

“Yes, very,” John agreed, grinding slowly again, leaning back just a little to increase the pressure and to look up into his flatmate’s eyes. He groaned a little, in the back of his throat, to see the heated gaze. “Damn, you feel so good.”

At the groan, Sherlock’s breath faltered and his hands came to rest tentatively at John’s hips. “Do you – do you think that – this….um….” He was panting now, but his face was still flushed and his eyes too bright, too wide.

Struggling to control himself, John eased up just a little, just enough to meet Sherlock’s gaze squarely and say, more levelly than he himself expected: “If you do not want this, I’ll go.” At Sherlock’s panicked startle, he amended – “I’ll go upstairs, and later on we can talk about it, or never mention it again. But say you don’t want it and I’ll stop right away.”

Sherlock swallowed dryly, once, twice, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his breathing erratic, his eyes never leaving John’s face. Until suddenly, they flicked down to John’s lips, and then they both felt John’s erection twitch at that. Sherlock’s eyes grew darker, and he licked his dry lips.

Slowly, so that Sherlock could stop him at any moment, John tugged on the curls until Sherlock’s head was tipped back, and then leaned forward to lick a slow, wet stripe up the detective’s throat, over his trembling pulse, over his Adam’s apple, to the underside of his chin.

With a moan, the detective’s knees gave out, and he nearly slid down the wall until John caught him at his underarms. “Sit.” He steered Sherlock to a chair and turned back to the sink, resting his hands on the cool metal, breathing deeply. “Okay. Too much, yeah? That’s ok.”

“Are – are you still hard?”

“Huh?” He half-turned, glanced over at the wrecked detective leaning against the kitchen table, trying to catch his breath. “I – yeah, I still am. Does that bother you?”

Sherlock shook his head, still flushed. “John, the reason I – I can’t – I’ve never –”

“Hey.” John reached out, clasped his shoulder. “We’re all new at this at some point.”

“Three-Continent Watson.”

Surprised into a chuckle, John still didn’t miss Sherlock’s quick appraisal of his body, the obvious distending of his jeans. “Tell you what,” John managed, before all the blood left his brain entirely. “I’m going to go upstairs…slip into something less…restrictive.” Sherlock snapped his gaze back to the doctor’s face. “Come with me.”


End file.
